Mr. Santorum issued a statement that said, in part, “As the son of an Italian immigrant myself, I continue to believe that English is the language of opportunity in America under statehood or the current status.”
Mr. Neumann said that despite Mr. Romney’s having the backing of establishment Republicans in Puerto Rico, Mr. Santorum still had a good chance here “because of his connection with the religious sector of the community.” Mr. Santorum is Roman Catholic, as are an overwhelming majority of people in Puerto Rico.

Being in favor of English is not the same as being anti-Spanish. My daughter, who is fluent in Spanish — her husband is the son of Argentine immigrants, and she spent a year in a full-immersion Spanish language program in Argentina — teaches kindergarten in a school here in Maryland where about three-quarters of her students are the children of Hispanic immigrants who don’t speak English at home. You know what? Those kids’ parents are so happy that my daughter teaches those kids English. It is indeed “the language of opportunity,” and everybody knows it, and it shouldn’t be “controversial” for a politician to say so.

Thursday evening at the Chariton County caucus inside the Railyard Steakhouse . . . Republicans voted to send their full share of delegates to the district and state conventions in support of Rick Santorum.For weeks, the Romney campaign has forcefully argued that Mr. Santorum’s victory in the Missouri primary last month was meaningless because no delegates were awarded. That assertion may turn out to be only partly true, which became clear for the first time here at the caucus meeting. . . .
An early glimpse into the caucuses unfolded here in Brunswick, a small town about two hours east of Kansas City, which decided to hold its meeting two days before the rest of the state.
The first question of the evening was whether to bind delegates to the results of the February primary. The measure passed by a wide margin and no discussion, which sent four delegates on behalf of Mr. Santorum and none for Mr. Romney or Representative Ron Paul of Texas.
“All of our county delegates will be bound to the popular vote for Chariton County,” said Andrea Rice, the county Republican chairwoman, who presided over the meeting and announced the results. “Four delegates will go for Rick Santorum.”

See what I’m talking about? Yes, officially, the Missouri primary was “non-binding,” but there was never any logic to the Romney spin. They wanted us to believe that Republicans attending a caucus in a county where Santorum previously got 60 or 70 percent of the primary vote would then turn around and award a majority of delegates to Romney. And considering that Santorum got 55% of the vote to 25% for Romney in the primary, this kind of caucus-flipping skullduggery would have to occur in county after county in order for Romney to swindle Santorum out of any significant number of delegates.

That’s just crazy talk, yet we heard that spin repeated endlessly on TV, and have seen it everywhere on the blogosphere. “Non-binding” became one of those things people said to show how sophisticated they were, as if anyone who counted Missouri a solid win for Santorum was a dimwit yokel, but Santorum won Missouri by THIRTY FREAKING POINTS!

“Non-binding,” my ass.

Exactly why it was considered “sophisticated” to derogate or minimize such a landslide, I don’t know. Perhaps for the same reason that Santorum’s declared intention to enforce federal laws against obscenity are worthy of headlines at the Drudge Report, even though Romney and Gingrich have said the exact same thing.

See, I figured this out back in New Hampshire, a state where the experts said nobody wanted to hear about “social issues.” Santorum had just won Iowa, and so every question he got in New Hampshire was about — you guessed, didn’t you? — “social issues.”

This was absurd: Which of the other Republican contenders was more liberal on “social issues” than Santorum? Isn’t Romney officially on the record as being 100% against same-sex marriage? Isn’t Newt Gingrich on the record as being 100% against abortion?

Ah, but the “sophisticated” people seem to secretly know in their hearts that Romney and Gingrich don’t really mean it.

Newt and Mitt are presumed to be “sophisticated,” too, and so their avowed conservative positions on ‘social issues” never elicit disapproving comments from Karl Rove, Charles Krauthammer, et al.

Remember, I spent some time in Iowa: 10 days in August before the Ames Straw Poll, and another eight days leading up the caucuses. Everybody knows evangelical Christians are the name of the game in the Iowa GOP, and so all of the candidates – all of them — were doing everything they could to win over the evangelical vote.

Certainly neither Mitt nor Newt ever tried to distance themselves from evangelical positions on “social issues” during the Iowa campaign. They would not have permitted Santorum to get away with claiming that they were more liberal than him on such issues — not in Iowa, no sir.

So please tell me why Santorum alone gets crucified on “social issues”? Do supporters of Newt and Mitt claim that their conservative stances during the Iowa campaign were just insincere pandering?

Or do you people simply think Santorum supporters are too stupid to notice that Mitt and Newt are getting a free pass on “social issues,” or too stupid to wonder why they get that free pass?

It’s “controversial” to say English should be the national language — if Rick Santorum says so.

It’s “controversial” to speak out against abortion or same-sex marriage — if Rick Santorum does it.

It’s “controversial” to support enforcement of laws against obscenity — if Rick Santorum supports it.

On which of these issues do Romney and Gingrich actually disagree with Santorum? So far as we know, they agree with him 100%. But where are the reporters hounding them with “gotcha” questions?

Where are the Daily Caller stories and Drudge headlines highlighting these “controversial” positions by Newt and Mitt?

With no other explanation for their obvious prejudice against Santorum, I therefore conclude: They hate Italians!

Comments

Anyone can see why Santorum gets all the flack for his socially conservative positions. Even Obama opposes gay marriage. The difference is, Santorum means what he says. Who knows what the others mean?

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_MJGP4QXZ5PRW2MFA5E25CV2WNU rosalie

How wonderful to be bilingual. I read somewhere that Santorum is fluent in Italian. My son is fluent in Spanish. He spent his last semester in college in San Sebastian, Spain. He eventually married a girl from Spain and they live in Portland, OR. Their seven year-old son can speak Spanish too. With their son, Maria spoke to him in Spanish and Chris spoke to him in English from the time he was a baby. When Chris was in Italy a while back, although he couldn’t speak Italian, he could understand it pretty well. I bet your daughter could too.

My dad got after me for speaking any, said we were in America, so speak American (which is a very distinct of English than what the British use, so Dad was in some ways correct).

http://www.leftbankofthecharles.com/ Charles

There are a lot of people of Italian descent in Puerto Rico, by the way. I don’t know all the facts behind that, but it may stem from parts of what is now Italy being governed by Spanish kings at the time of the early exploration and settlement. Columbus himself was just such an Italian.